Produced by Ron Swanson
THE MIDDLE PERIOD
_THE AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES_
THE MIDDLE PERIOD
1817-1858
BY
JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, AND DEAN OF THE
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF
NEW YORK
_WITH MAPS_
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
To the memory of my former teacher, colleague, and friend,
JULIUS HAWLEY SEELYE,
philosopher, theologian, statesman, and educator, this volume is
reverently and affectionately inscribed.
PREFACE
There is no more serious and delicate task in literature and morals
than that of writing the history of the United States from 1816 to
1860. The periods which precede this may be treated without fear of
arousing passion, prejudice, and resentment, and with little danger of
being misunderstood. Even the immaculateness of Washington may be
attacked without exciting anything worse than a sort of uncomfortable
admiration for the reckless courage of the assailant. But when we pass
the year 1820, and especially when we approach the year 1860, we find
ourselves in a different world. We find ourselves in the midst of the
ideas, the motives, and the occurrences which, and of the men who,
have, in large degree, produced the animosities, the friendships, and
the relations between parties and sections which prevail to-day.
Serious and delicate as the task is, however, the time has arrived
when it should be undertaken in a thoroughly impartial spirit. The
continued misunderstanding between the North and the South is an ever
present menace to the welfare of both sections and of the entire
nation. It makes it almost impossible to decide any question of our
politics upon its merits. It offers an almost insuperable obstacle to
the development of a national opinion upon the fundamental principles
of our polity. If we would clear up this confusion in the common
consciousness, we must do something to dispel this misunderstanding;
and I know of no means of accomplishing this, save the rewriting of
our history from 1816 to 1860, with an open mind and a willing spirit
to see and to represent truth and error, and right and wrong, without
regard to the men or the sections in whom or where they may appear.
I am by no means certain that I am able to do this. I am old enough to
have been a witness of the great struggle of 1861-65, and to have
participated, in a small way, in it. My early years were embittered by
the political hatreds which then prevailed. I learned before my
majority to regard secession as an abomination, and its chief cause,
slavery, as a great evil; and I cannot say that these feelings have
been much modified, if any at all, by longer experiences and maturer
thought. I have, therefore, undertaken this work with many misgivings.
Keenly conscious of my own prejudices, I have exerted my imagination
to the utmost to create a picture in my own mind of the environment of
those who held the opposite opinion upon these fundamental subjects,
and to appreciate the processes of their reasoning under the
influences of their own particular situation. And I have with sedulous
care avoided all the histories written immediately after the close of
the great contest of arms, and all rehashes of them of later date. In
fact I have made it an invariable rule to use no secondary material;
that is, no material in which original matter is mingled with
somebody's interpretation of its meaning. If, therefore, the facts in
my narration are twisted by prejudices and preconceptions, I think I
can assure my readers that they have suffered only one twist. I have
also endeavored to approach my subject in a reverent spirit, and to
deal with the characters who made our history, in this almost tragic
period, as serious and sincere men having a most perplexing and
momentous problem to solve, a problem not of their own making, but a
fatal inheritance from their predecessors.
I have been especially repelled by the flippant superficiality of the
foreign critics of this period of our history, and their evident
delight in representing the professions and teachings of the "Free
Republic" as canting hypocrisy. It has seemed to me a great misfortune
that the present generation and future generations should be taught to
regard so lightly the earnest efforts of wise, true, and honorable men
to rescue the country from the great catastrophe which, for so long,
impended over it. The passionate onesidedness of our own writers is
hardly more harmful, and is certainly less repulsive.
I recently heard a distinguished professor of history and politics say
that he thought the history of the United States, in this period,
could be truthfully written only by a Scotch-Irishman. I suppose he
meant that the Scotch element in this ideal historian would take the
Northern point of view, and the Irish element the Southern; but I
could not see how this would produce anything more than another pair
of narratives from the old contradictory points of view; and he did
not explain how it would.
My opinion is, on the contrary, that this history must be written by
an American and a Northerner, and from the Northern point of
view--because an American best understands Americans, after all;
because the victorious party can be and will be more liberal,
generous, and sympathetic than the vanquished; and because the
Northern view is, in the main, the correct view. It will not improve
matters to concede that the South had right and the North might, or,
even, that both were equally right and equally wrong. Such a doctrine
can only work injury to both, and more injury to the South than to the
North. Chewing the bitter cud of fancied wrong produces both spiritual
misery and material adversity, and tempts to foolish and reckless
action for righting the imagined injustice. Moreover, any such
doctrine is false, and acquiescence in it, however kindly meant, is
weak, and can have no other effect than the perpetuation of error and
misunderstanding. The time has come when the men of the South should
acknowledge that they were in error in their attempt to destroy the
Union, and it is unmanly in them not to do so. When they appealed the
great question from the decision at the ballot-box to the "trial by
battle," their leaders declared, over and over again, in calling their
followers to arms, that the "God of battles" would surely give the
victory to the right. In the great movements of the world's history
this is certainly a sound philosophy, and they should have held to it
after their defeat. Their recourse to the crude notion that they had
succumbed only to might was thus not only a bitter, false, and
dangerous consolation, but it was a stultification of themselves when
at their best as men and heroes.
While, therefore, great care has been taken, in the following pages,
to attribute to the Southern leaders and the Southern people sincerity
of purpose in their views and their acts, while their ideas and their
reasoning have been, I think, duly appreciated, and patiently
explained, while the right has been willingly acknowledged to them and
honor accorded them whenever and wherever they have had the right and
have merited honor, and while unbounded sympathy for personal
suffering and misfortune has been expressed, still not one scintilla
of justification for secession and rebellion must be expected. The
South must acknowledge its error as well as its defeat in regard to
these things, and that, too, not with lip service, but from the brain
and the heart and the manly will, before any real concord in thought
and feeling, any real national brotherhood, can be established. This
is not too much to demand, simply because it is right, and nothing can
be settled, as Mr. Lincoln said, until it is settled right. Any
interpretation of this period of American history which does not
demonstrate to the South its error will be worthless, simply because
it will not be true; and unless we are men enough to hear and accept
and stand upon the truth, it is useless to endeavor to find a bond of
real union between us. In a word, the conviction of the South of its
error in secession and rebellion is absolutely indispensable to the
establishment of national cordiality; and the history of this period
which fails to do this will fail in accomplishing one of the highest
works of history, the reconciliation of men to the plans of Providence
for their perfection.
I have not, in the following pages, undertaken to treat _all_ of the
events of our experience from 1816 to 1860. The space allowed me would
not admit of that. And even if it had, I still would have selected
only those events which, in my opinion, are significant of our
progress in civilization, and, as I am writing a political history,
only those which are significant of our progress in political
civilization. The truthful record, connection, and interpretation of
such events is what I call history in the highest sense, as
distinguished from chronology, narrative, and romance. Both necessity
and philosophy have confined me to these.
I cannot close these prefatory sentences without a word of grateful
acknowledgment to my friend and colleague, Dr. Harry A. Cushing, for
the important services which he has rendered me in the preparation of
this work.
JOHN W. BURGESS.
323 WEST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
JANUARY 22, 1897.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY, . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER II.
THE ACQUISITION OF FLORIDA, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER III.
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1820, . . . . . . . . . . 39
CHAPTER IV.
THE CREATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MISSOURI, . . . . . . . . 61
CHAPTER V.
THE BEGINNING OF THE PARTICULARISTIC REACTION, . . . . . . . . 108
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1824, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
CHAPTER VII.
THE DIVISION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
CHAPTER VIII.
DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION TO INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND PROTECTION, 166
CHAPTER IX.
THE UNITED STATES BANK AND THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1832, . 190
CHAPTER X.
NULLIFICATION, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
CHAPTER XI.
ABOLITION, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
CHAPTER XII.
THE BANK, THE SUB-TREASURY, AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN 1832
AND 1842, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
CHAPTER XIII.
TEXAS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
CHAPTER XIV.
OREGON, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
CHAPTER XV.
THE "RE-ANNEXATION OF TEXAS AND THE RE-OCCUPATION OF OREGON," 318
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WAR WITH MEXICO, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
CHAPTER XVII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF
1850, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND THE ELECTION OF
1852, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
CHAPTER XIX.
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE, . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
CHAPTER XX.
THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DRED SCOTT CASE, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
CHAPTER XXII.
THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS CONCLUDED, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
APPENDIX I.
THE ELECTORAL VOTE IN DETAIL, 1820-1856, . . . . . . . . . . . 475
APPENDIX II.
THE CABINETS OF MONROE, ADAMS, JACKSON, VAN BUREN, HARRISON,
TYLER, POLK, TAYLOR, FILLMORE, PIERCE, AND
BUCHANAN--1816-1858, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
CHRONOLOGY, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
BIBLIOGRAPHY, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
INDEX, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
LIST OF MAPS.
FACING
PAGE
FLORIDA AT THE TIME OF ACQUISITION, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
TEXAS AT THE TIME OF ANNEXATION, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
OREGON AS DETERMINED BY THE TREATY OF 1846, . . . . . . . . . . 312
CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO IN 1850, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
NEBRASKA AND KANSAS, 1854-1861, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
THE MIDDLE PERIOD
{1}
CHAPTER I.
THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY
General Character of the Acts of the Fourteenth Congress--Madison's
Message of December 5th, 1815--Change in the Principles of the
Republican Party--The United States Bank Act of 1816--Report of the
Bank Bill by Mr. Calhoun--Mr. Calhoun's Argument in Favor of the
Bill--Webster's Objections to the Bank Bill--Mr. Clay's Support of the
Bank Bill--Passage of the Bank Bill by the House of
Representatives--The Passage of the Bank Bill by the Senate--The
United States Bank of 1816 a Southern Measure--The Tariff Bill Framed
by the Committee on Ways and Means--The Tariff Bill Reported--The
Character of the Tariff Bill--Mr. Calhoun's Speech upon the Tariff
Bill--The Passage of the Tariff Bill--The Army and Navy Bills--The
Bill for National Improvements--Mr. Calhoun's Advocacy of this
Bill--The Opposition to the Internal Improvements Bill--Passage of the
Bill by Congress--Veto of the Bill by the President--The Failure of
Congress to Override the Veto.
It is no part of my task to relate the events of the War of 1812-15.
That has already been sufficiently done in the preceding volume of
this series. I take up the threads of the narrative at the beginning
of the year 1816, and my problem in this chapter will be to expound
the acts and policies of the Fourteenth Congress in the light of the
experiences of that War.
{2} [Sidenote: General character of the acts of the Fourteenth
Congress.]
Those acts and policies were shaped and adopted under the influence of
those experiences, and this influence was so predominant, at the
moment, in the minds of the leading men in the Government and
throughout the country as to exclude, or at least to overbalance, all
other influences. This is especially manifest in the attitude of the
statesmen of the slave-holding Commonwealths, and most especially in
the attitude of their great leader, Mr. Calhoun, who was the chief
champion of some of the most national measures voted by that Congress.
A clear appreciation of his views and his acts at that period of his
career will enable us far better than anything else to understand the
terrible seriousness of the slavery question, which subsequently drove
him into lines of thought and action so widely divergent from those
upon which he set out in early life.
[Sidenote: Madison's message of December 5th, 1815.]
It was the President himself, however, one of the chief founders of
the "States' rights" party, Mr. Madison, who set the direction toward
centralization in the Congressional legislation of 1815-17. In his
annual message of December 5th, 1815, he recommended the increase and
better organization of the army and the navy, the enlargement of the
existing Military Academy and the founding of such academies in the
different sections of the country, the creation of a national
currency, the protection of manufactures, the construction of roads
and canals, and the establishment of a national university.
This is a very different political creed from that promulgated by
President Jefferson when the Republican party first gained possession
of the Government at Washington. Then, decrease in all the elements of
power in the hands of the central Government, and careful maintenance
of all the rights and powers of the {3} "States," were recommended and
urged upon the attention of the national lawgivers.
[Sidenote: Change in the principles of the Republican party.]
From a "States'-sovereignty" party in 1801, the Republican party had
manifestly become a strong national party in 1816; that is, if we are
to take the two Presidential messages, to which we have referred, as
containing the political principles of that party at these two periods
of its existence.
As the Congress of 1801 showed itself, in its legislation, to be in
substantial accord with President Jefferson's views and sentiments, so
did the Congress of 1815 manifest, in its legislation, the same
general harmony with the views and sentiments of President Madison. In
order that the latter part of this statement may be set down as an
established fact of history, we will review with some particularity
the two cardinal acts of this Congress--the United States Bank Act and
the Tariff Act.
[Sidenote: The United States Bank Act of 1816.]
So soon as the reading of President Madison's message before the House
of Representatives was completed, that body resolved to refer that
part of the message which related to the establishment of an uniform
national currency to a select committee. The committee chosen was
composed of Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Macon, Mr. Pleasants, Mr. Tucker, Mr.
Robertson, Mr. Hopkinson, and Mr. Pickering. The first five of these
gentlemen were from Commonwealths south of the Pennsylvania line, and
only two, therefore, from what began now to be called the
"non-slave-holding States." In other words, it was a Southern
committee, and the great South Carolinian was its chairman. It is,
therefore, just to regard the bill which this committee brought in,
and the arguments with which they supported it, as containing the
views and the sentiments of the leading Southern Republicans in the
House.
{4} [Sidenote: Report of the Bank Bill by Mr. Calhoun.]
This committee came speedily to the conclusion that the
nationalization of the monetary system was the most pressing need of
the country, and within a month from the date of the appointment of
its members the chairman of the committee reported a bill for the
creation of an United States Bank, a mammoth national banking
corporation, which should have a capital of thirty-five millions of
dollars; in which the central Government should own one-fifth of the
stock and be represented by one-fifth of the directors; the president
of which should always be selected from among the Government's
directors; the demand notes and bills of which should be received in
all payments to the United States; and the chartered privileges of
which should be made a monopoly for twenty years.
[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's argument in favor of the Bill.]
In his great argument in support of the bill, delivered on February
26th, Mr. Calhoun dismissed at the outset any consideration of the
constitutionality of the bill. That is, he simply assumed that
Congress had the power to pass the bill, and declared that the public
mind was entirely made up and settled upon that point.
Only five years before this, even the national-minded Clay had
pronounced the dictum that Congress had no power to grant a national
bank charter, and the fact that Congress then declined to grant such a
charter is good evidence that the majority of the people of the
country held the same view. There can be little question that the
Republican party, down to 1812, regarded the establishment of an
United States bank by Congress as an usurpation of power not granted
by the Constitution.
Five years constitute a short period of time for the accomplishment of
so important a change in the public {5} opinion. Five years of
ordinary experience would not have produced it. It was, without doubt,
the strain brought upon the finances of the country by the necessities
of the War that had developed a powerful national opinion upon the
subject of the financial system of the country.
Mr. Calhoun also declined to discuss the question whether banks were
favorable or unfavorable to "public liberty and prosperity." He
assumed, here again, that public experience had settled that question,
and said that such an inquiry was now purely metaphysical. This
statement is certainly prime evidence that the practical experiences,
made in conducting the Government under the pressure of war, had about
knocked the metaphysics of the year 1800 out of the Republican party,
and had led the party on to a much more positive stage of political
opinion.
Mr. Calhoun furthermore dismissed the question whether a "national
bank would be favorable to the administration of the finances of the
Government," since there was not enough doubt, he said, in the public
mind upon that point to warrant a discussion of it.
He declared, finally, that the only questions which demanded
consideration were those relative to the existing disorders of the
currency, and the efficiency of a national bank in working their cure.
Upon these two points he was distinct, decided, and thoroughly
national. He said that the Constitution had without doubt placed the
monetary system of the country entirely within the control of
Congress; that the "States" had usurped the power of making money by
chartering banks of issue in the face of the constitutional provision
forbidding the "States" to emit bills of credit; that the two hundred
millions of dollars of irredeemable bank-notes, paper, and credits,
issued by these banks, were the cause of the {6} financial disorders
of the country; and that the remedy for this condition of things was,
in his opinion, to be found in a great specie-paying national bank,
sustained by the power of the general Government in the work of
bringing such a pressure upon these "State" banks as would force them
either to pay specie or go into liquidation. This was clear, generous,
and patriotic. No one made a fairer statement of the case, and no one
advocated a more national remedy in its treatment.
[Sidenote: Webster's objections to the Bank Bill.]
On the other hand, it was Webster who, at this time, appeared narrow
and particularistic. He objected to the large amount of the capital,
and to the stock feature of the proposed bank, and expressed alarm at
the proposition to place it under such strong governmental control. He
thought that the bills and paper of the "State" banks would be good
enough, if the general Government would only force them to redeem
their currency in specie by refusing to accept for Government dues the
bills of banks which did not pay specie on demand.
Whatever may be thought of Webster's attitude from the point of view
of political economy, it was certainly, from the point of view of
political science, the attitude of a "States'-rights" man rather than
that of a nationalist. Webster did not, however, call the
constitutionality of the bill in question. That was conceded upon all
sides.
The friends of the measure felt more anxiety in regard to Mr. Clay. He
had, only five years before, as we have seen, pronounced a similar
bill unconstitutional in his opinion, and he was now the Speaker of
the House, with all the power over the procedure in the House which
that position involved. It was generally felt that the fate of the
measure would be largely determined by his attitude toward it.
[Sidenote: Mr. Clay's support of the Bank Bill.]
Mr. Clay did not leave the House long in doubt {7} concerning his
views. He quickly revealed and avowed that noted change of opinion
upon this subject, which has been commonly accounted one of his
greatest inconsistencies, but which may be very properly considered as
simply manifesting that growth in patriotism and national spirit
experienced by almost all the leading men of the country, outside of
New England, in consequence of the vicissitudes of the period of war
under which the nation suffered between the dates of Mr. Clay's two
utterances. He frankly confessed that he had changed his opinion, and
explained the change by saying that the power of Congress in respect
to the matter was contained in the clause of the Constitution which
conferred upon Congress the authority to make all laws necessary and
proper for carrying the powers of the Government into operation; that,
in the interpretation of the words "necessary and proper," reference
must always be had to existing circumstances; that, when conditions
change, the interpretation must be so modified as to meet and satisfy
such change; and that the conditions obtaining in the country in 1816
were so changed from those obtaining in 1811 as to require the
enlarged interpretation of the powers of Congress under this clause
upon the subject of the monetary system of the country.
[Sidenote: Passage of the Bank Bill by the House of Representatives.]
The eloquence and the influence of Mr. Clay counted heavily in favor
of the measure, and it was passed by a substantial majority of votes.
In fact, the privileges of the proposed Bank had been increased by
amendment during the progress of the bill through the House. The Bank
and its branches were made the depositories of the funds of the
Government. This great advantage was, at least, a substantial offset
to the other modifications of the original bill, whereby the clauses
requiring that the president of {8} the Bank should always be chosen
from among the Government directors, and reserving to Congress the
power to permit a temporary suspension of specie payment by the Bank,
were stricken out.
[Sidenote: The passage of the Bank Bill through the Senate.]
During the passage of the bill through the Senate only a single
Senator expressed any doubts of its constitutionality, Mr. Wells, of
Delaware. Mr. Wells did not deny the power of Congress to charter a
national bank, but simply contended that the particular Bank proposed
in the bill exceeded what was "necessary and proper" for carrying into
effect the powers of Congress, and was therefore unconstitutional. On
the other hand, Senators Barbour, of Virginia, Taylor, of South
Carolina, and Bibb, of Georgia, supported the measure, both in
principle and in details, and carried it with a larger relative
majority through the Senate than it had received in the House.
[Sidenote: The United States Bank of 1816 a Southern measure.]
The United States Bank of 1816 was thus a Southern measure, and
Calhoun was its chief author. It was in principle a great national
measure, and its creation by Congress is strong evidence of the great
growth in national opinion and sentiment throughout the country, away
from the national indifference of the Jeffersonian metapolitics of
1800.
[Sidenote: The Tariff of 1816.]
A review of the Tariff Act of 1816 will bring us to the same
conclusions concerning the great nationalizing influence of the War.
The rate of duty upon the principal articles of imported goods was,
before the War, twelve and one-half per centum ad valorem. From a rate
of five per centum upon these articles, imposed by the first Customs
Act, that of July, 1789, the duty had been increased by about a dozen
acts, passed by both Federal and Republican Congresses, until, in
1812, it had reached the {9} above-mentioned per centum. Twelve and
one-half per centum was, as a fact, nothing more than a revenue duty,
and was intended for nothing more by the party in power at that date.
At the outbreak of the War double duties were imposed by the Act of
July 1st, 1812, as a war measure, that is, as a measure for obtaining
additional revenue for the prosecution of the War. It was not intended
as a measure for the protection of manufacturers. This Act was to
expire in one year, at the farthest, after the conclusion of peace
with England.
The ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent were exchanged on February
17th, 1815. At the meeting of Congress, in December, 1815, the war
duties were, therefore, still in force, but the Act establishing them
would expire by its own limitation in less than three months. This
Congress was obliged, therefore, to deal with the tariff anew.
[Sidenote: The Bill framed by the Committee on Ways and Means.]
The recommendations of the President in regard to the matter were
referred to the committee of the House on Ways and Means, the regular
revenue committee. At that moment this committee was composed of seven
members, four from Commonwealths south of Maryland, and three from
those north of Maryland. Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, was its
chairman. It is fair, therefore, to call it a Southern committee, and
to regard the bill which it produced as a Southern measure.
[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill reported.]
The committee first asked for a continuation of the existing duties
until the thirtieth day of the following June, in order to give proper
time to mature the bill, which request was voted by both houses of
Congress; and on March 20th, Mr. Lowndes announced that he was
prepared to report the draft of the new Act. The measure contained
virtually the continuation of the war {10} tariff as the permanent
rule and policy in time of peace. It was now manifestly a protective
tariff, and it was intended to be such. Mr. Ingham of the committee
said, at the beginning of the debate upon it, that "its great primary
object was to make such a modification of duties upon the various
articles of importation as would give the necessary and proper
protection and support to the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce
of the country." He went so far as to say that revenue considerations
ought not to have any influence in the decision of the House upon the
committee's propositions.
[Sidenote: The character of the Tariff Bill.]
It is entirely evident, however, that the committee did not regard the
bill as proposing advantages for the manufacturers only, or as having
for its principal aim the increase of the wages of the employees in
the manufacturing establishments, but considered it a great national
measure, a measure necessary to the industrial independence of the
country. It is also evident that the bill was not thought by anybody
to rest upon a perfect and permanent principle. Mr. Clay himself said
of it, "that the object of protecting manufacturers was, that we might
eventually get articles of necessity made as cheap at home as they
could be imported, and thereby to produce an independence of foreign
countries;" that "in three years we could judge of the ability of our
establishments to furnish those articles as cheap as they were
obtained from abroad, and could then legislate with the lights of
experience;" and that "he believed that three years would be
sufficient to place our manufacturers on this desirable footing."
[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's speech upon the Tariff Bill.]
It was Calhoun again, however, who surpassed them all in broadness of
view and in patriotic devotion to the interests of the nation. The
immediate occasion of {11} his speech was a motion made by John
Randolph, which seemed to Mr. Calhoun to attack the principle of the
bill. He said, that so long as the debate had been confined to
questions of detail he had refrained from joining in it; but now that
the general policy of the measure had been attacked he felt obliged to
come forward in support of that policy, which he could do with all the
more grace and sincerity since his own private interests were
primarily subserved by the advancement of agriculture, as were those
of his section. He began his argument with the assertions that
commerce and agriculture were the chief sources of the wealth of the
country at the moment, almost the only sources, and that manufactures
must be added to these in order to accomplish industrial independence.
In proof of this latter proposition he referred to the well known
effect of war between a maritime power and the United States upon the
prosperity of the latter. He simply pointed to the historic facts that
such a war destroyed the commerce of the country with foreign powers,
and that the destruction of commerce caused the products of
agriculture, usually exported to pay for manufactured goods imported
from foreign countries, to perish in the hands of the producers.
Domestic manufactures, he contended, would not only relieve us from
dependence upon foreign countries for manufactured goods, but would
create home markets for agricultural products. Encouragement to
manufactures was, therefore, a sound national, a truly American,
policy. As Mr. Calhoun proceeded in his speech, his strong patriotism
became more manifest. He affirmed that the policy of protection to
manufactures was calculated to bind more closely together the
different parts of our widely extended country, since it would
increase the mutual dependence of these different sections on each
{12} other in proportion as it decreased their dependence on foreign
markets. And he declared that he considered the production of this
result to be the most fundamental of all our policies, for the reason
that the absence of such mutual dependence would tend toward disunion,
and disunion comprehended almost the sum and substance of our
political dangers, against which, therefore, we ought to be
perpetually guarded.
[Sidenote: The passage of the Tariff Bill.]
Calhoun was in his thirty-fifth year when he advanced these views. The
sentiments which they revealed cannot, therefore, be ascribed to the
enthusiasm of youth and inexperience. They rested upon the settled
convictions of a mature man. They stand in need of no comment. They
speak for themselves. We shall search the reports of the debate in
vain for anything wiser, nobler, or more patriotic. In comparison with
them the views pronounced by the New Englanders upon the subject
appear narrow and selfish. They were willing to sacrifice the
industrial independence of the nation to their own interests in the
carrying trade upon the sea. Even the name of Webster is not to be
found among those who voted for the final passage of the bill. The
majority in its favor was, however, nearly two to one. In the Senate,
the vote was nearly four to one for it. Though Southern in its
immediate origin, it certainly had the support of the nation, and was
regarded as a great measure of national independence. The opposition
made to it by Randolph and Telfair, and by the remnant of the New
England Federalists, was regarded as unnational and unpatriotic. It
contributed to the complete disappearance of the Federal party from
the arena of national politics.
[Sidenote: The Army and Navy Bills.]
This Congress gave, however, an even surer test of the growth of the
national spirit among the people than either the Bank Act or the
Tariff Act. It was the {13} series of acts for the increase of the
Army and the Navy, and for their thorough reorganization. The
Republican doctrine of 1800 was, that there was no need of a national
army; that the militias of the Commonwealths were a sufficient
military force; and that a standing army was dangerous to liberty. By
the Act of March 16th, 1802, Congress fixed the peace establishment at
two regiments of infantry, and one regiment of artillerists, not more
than thirty-five hundred men. No increase of this force had been
permitted between 1802 and 1812.
During the War of 1812-15, the Commonwealths of Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut taught the nation how much, or rather how
little, reliance was to be placed upon the militias of the
Commonwealths in the defence of the country against foreign attack. In
spite of the plain provision of the Constitution, and the Act of
Congress in accordance therewith, empowering the President to call the
militias of the Commonwealths into the service of the United States,
the Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut disputed the
President's authority in this respect and refused compliance with his
orders. Well might the President complain that, even upon this most
essential point, the military organization, the United States was not
a nation. With such an experience as this, Congress and the people
were thoroughly converted from the particularistic doctrinism of 1800,
and now manifested their strong national spirit in the willingness to
place a large standing military force in the hands of the central
Government in times of peace.
By the Act of March 3rd, 1816, Congress fixed the peace footing of the
Army at ten thousand men, excluding the corps of engineers; and by the
Act of April 24th, of the same year, it reorganized, or rather {14}
re-created, the general staff, upon the principle that the staff
should be as complete in time of peace as in time of war.
The Navy received similar attention and favor. By the Act of April
29th, 1816, Congress appropriated eight millions of dollars for the
construction of nine seventy-four-gun ships, twelve forty-four-gun
ships, and three steam batteries.
Evidently the fear that the President would, by virtue of his power as
commander-in-chief of a large standing army and navy, declare himself
emperor, and make the military and naval officers his dukes and
counts, had vanished in the smoke of the burned Capitol, and, in place
of this silly terror of crowns and diadems, a thoroughgoing confidence
in the national Government had established itself in the brain and
heart of the people and of their leaders.
These great national measures occupied the attention of Congress to
such a degree, during the session of 1815-16, as to delay the
consideration of the question of a system of national internal
improvements to the second session, that of 1816-17.
[Sidenote: The Bill for National Improvements.]
At the opening of this session, Mr. Calhoun, again, came forward with
a motion for the appointment of a committee, which should consider the
question of setting aside the bonus to be paid by the United States
Bank to the Government for its charter, and the net annual proceeds
received by the Government upon its shares in the Bank, as a permanent
fund for internal improvements. The motion was quickly carried, and
the committee, consisting of two members from the North and two from
the South, with Mr. Calhoun for chairman, was appointed. This was
December 16th, 1816. In a week from this date the committee presented
a bill providing for the setting {15} apart of the funds above
indicated for the construction of roads and canals.
[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's advocacy of this Bill.]
Mr. Calhoun opened the debate upon the bill, and his speech abounded
with the same national ideas and patriotic sentiments which
characterized his arguments in support of the Bank and Tariff
measures. After asserting that the moment was most opportune for the
consideration of the question, on account of the fact that all party
and sectional feelings had given way to "a liberal and an enlightened
regard for the general concerns of the nation," Mr. Calhoun again
pronounced his warning concerning the greatest danger to which the
country was exposed, namely, disunion, and declared it to be the
highest duty of American statesmen so to form the policies of the
Government as to counteract all tendencies toward sectionalism and
disunion. He contended that from this point of view nothing could be
more necessary or more advantageous than a large national system of
internal improvements, establishing the great lines of commerce and
intercourse for binding together all the parts of the country in
interests, ideas, and sentiments.
No part of his argument, however, is so instructive to the student of
American constitutional history as the observations upon the question
of the constitutionality of the bill. He said that he was no advocate
of refined reasoning upon the Constitution; that "the instrument was
not intended as a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity
on; that it ought to be construed with plain good sense; and that when
so construed nothing could be more express than the Constitution upon
this very point." The clause to which he referred was that which
confers upon Congress the power "to levy and collect taxes, duties,
imposts, and excises; to pay the {16} debts and provide for the common
defence and general welfare of the United States." Mr. Calhoun claimed
that these words were to be interpreted as vesting in Congress the
power to appropriate money for the common defence and general welfare
of the country at its own discretion, both as to object and amount. He
insisted that a generous interpretation of the power to raise and
appropriate money was absolutely required, in order to avoid the
necessity of placing a forced construction upon other powers. It was
all in his best strain, and showed Mr. Calhoun still as the chief
advocate of national union and national development. No other person
seemed to equal him in breadth of view and purity of patriotism.
[Sidenote: The opposition to the Internal Improvements Bill.]
The measure met, however, with more opposition than the Bank Bill or
the Tariff Bill had experienced. Two years of peace had cooled the
ardor of the national spirit somewhat, and the people were dropping
back into the narrow spheres of ordinary life and business routine.
Moreover, the great hue and cry raised by the demagogues and the press
over the bill, passed at the previous session, changing the pay of the
members of Congress from a per diem of six dollars during attendance
to an annual salary of fifteen hundred dollars, had made the members
timid about the appropriation of money, and disinclined to obligate
the Treasury to anything beyond absolutely necessary expenses.
[Sidenote: Passage of the Bill by Congress.]
Nevertheless, the great power and earnestness with which Mr. Calhoun
addressed himself to the task of carrying the bill through its
different stages were crowned with success. It finally passed both
Houses, in a slightly modified form, during the last week of the
Fourteenth Congress and of President Madison's second term.
{17} [Sidenote: Veto of the Bill by the President.]
To the great surprise of the friends of the measure, the President
returned the bill to Congress on March 3rd, with his objections. These
were, summed up in a single sentence, that there was no warrant in the
Constitution for the exercise of the power by Congress to pass such a
bill. The President held that Congress could appropriate money only to
such objects as were placed by the Constitution under the jurisdiction
of the general Government. He, therefore, repudiated Calhoun's
latitudinarian view that Congress was referred to its own discretion
merely in the appropriation of money for the advancement of the
general welfare. He acknowledged the desirability of attaining the
object contemplated by the bill, and indicated that an amendment to
the Constitution, expressly conferring upon Congress the power in
question, was the proper way to deal with the subject. He had, as we
have seen, recommended the consideration of the question of internal
improvements in both of his annual messages to the Fourteenth
Congress, and it was chiefly for this reason that the veto was so
unexpected. It is true that, in both of these messages, he had
expressed some doubt in regard to the power of Congress over the
subject, but it was supposed that this was only his cautious way of
approaching a new thing, and that he would certainly defer to the
views of the Congressional majority.
It must be remembered, however, that Mr. Madison belonged to the first
generation of the Republicans, and that the principle of the party, in
the period of its origin, was strict construction of the Constitution
in regard to the powers of the general Government. He had been driven
by the younger men into the War, and into the national policies which
it occasioned and produced, and it is at least intelligible that he
returned to his earlier {18} creed as the country settled down again
into the humdrum of ordinary life.
[Sidenote: The failure of Congress to override the veto.]
The national Republicans looked upon his act, however, as an apostasy,
and the House of Representatives repassed the bill by an increased
majority and with considerable feeling. The majority was still,
however, not sufficient to overcome the veto, and thus the first
earnest attempt to commit the nation to a general system of internal
improvements failed, failed through the resurrection of a spirit in
the retiring President, which was destined soon to take possession of
many who denounced it then as mean and narrow, and to lead the whole
country back into those cramping tenets of particularism from which
war and bloodshed alone could deliver it.
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